


wanna scream the truth

by pirateygoodness



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Dark Betty, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Frenemies, Hate Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 13:36:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10105640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pirateygoodness/pseuds/pirateygoodness
Summary: Betty's never hatedanyonethe way she hates Cheryl goddamn Blossom. It's a hate that stays under her skin for days, itching and stinging until it's all Betty can do to keep herself from clawing it right out. (Dark and twisty, just like Betty and Cheryl, with strong Dark Betty vibes. Set immediately after Chapter Three)





	

Betty has an uncle who always used to say: ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. Betty always did wonder what happened between Jason and Polly. 

So she finds out. 

She finds out in the middle of the boys' locker room with four other people, and it feels like all the air goes out of the room. Everyone watching her, waiting to see what poor Betty Cooper will do with the news about her poor sister. She breathes through her nose, tries to ignore the rush of blood in her ears as she processes: nine points. Her sister is worth nine points, in Chuck's stupid, slut shaming ledger. The big sister who taught her how to french braid, who let Betty sleep in her bed when she was scared of the dark and didn't want to be alone. Those warm arms and her voice, telling Betty everything was going to be alright. Nine points was all it took to take all that away. 

She spends all night with it. That playbook may be ashes, but Betty wouldn't be a good journalist if she didn't keep good records, and every damning page of it is locked safe and sound on her hard drive. She reads and rereads, cross-references with social media, until she unlocks their scoring system. _Polly Cooper - (9) - shy reserved girl._

It's been four days, and Betty can't stop thinking about it. 

Betty gets like this, sometimes. _Driven,_ her mom calls it. _Carried away,_ Archie used to call it, back when they were still friends and not whatever they are now. The information's under her skin and she just needs to do something with it, because she's furious over it all the time, now, and she can't handle feeling like this for another minute. Cheryl isn't Jason, Betty knows that. But she's the closest thing to him, with her _my darling brother_ this and _Jason would've wanted_ that, like poison.

She knew. She had to know, as much as she plays dumb and casts around that beautiful, duplicitous smile like she thinks people will actually believe it. 

Betty's never hated _anyone_ the way she hates Cheryl goddamn Blossom. It's a hate that stays under her skin for days, itching and stinging until it's all Betty can do to keep herself from clawing it right out. 

 

+

 

Cheryl's parents aren't home. Betty knows this, because they're at the annual pumpkin festival with her parents, and because she texted Cheryl ahead of time to be sure. _Just to talk_ , she'd said in her text, with a little smiley-face emoji for reassurance. _About River Vixen stuff, for the game next week._

She goes to Cheryl's house to confront her. To dig it out of her. To make her look Betty in the eyes and at least admit to some part of this awfulness. 

Cheryl answers the door. She's back to her old self, that brief glimmer of faux-humility in front of Veronica's determination having evaporated days ago. Her lips are glossed perfectly, curling up in a smile so fake-nice that it makes Betty's jaw ache. She's not supposed to clench her jaw. Nice girls don't. But Betty's starting to think that being a nice girl is vastly overrated, and besides, if she doesn't clench _something_ she's going to claw that smug look right off of Cheryl's face. 

"Betty," she says, somehow managing to sound welcoming and disappointed at the same time. "Come in." 

Betty does. 

She says thank you, and mumbles something about the River Vixens playbook, a pretext for today's visit. Cheryl nods. 

"I like your lipstick, Betty," she says. She does not like Betty's lipstick, and they both know it. "Urban Decay?"

Betty smiles. " _Seduced Scarlet_ , actually." 

Cheryl's bedroom looks like one of those teenage apartments on TV. It's immaculate, far more grown-up than it should be. There are art posters decorating the walls, her River Vixen trophies and actual photos of her friends tastefully kept to one corner of her desk. The furniture is just like the rest of the Blossom house, halfway out of Beauty and the Beast. It makes Betty's stomach churn. 

The door closes behind them with a gentle click. It's Betty's cue, the signal she picked for herself. She smiles. 

There must be something in her smile that gives her away to Cheryl, because she rolls her eyes, stomps her foot like Betty's being _stupid._ "Look, Betty, if you think you're going to come over here for some ridiculous re-enactment of tawdry, eight grade experimentation, you are sorely -" 

"I know what Jason did to Polly," Betty says. She's furious, terrified, so much so that her feelings seem almost far away. They're future Betty's problem. For now, she just has the present and her voice and the cold, certainty of what she needs Cheryl to do. "I know what he did, and you're going to admit that you knew, too." 

Cheryl speaks. Betty doesn't really hear it. She hears her tone of voice, the way her voice quavers as if she's actually flustered. All Betty registers is the roar of her own blood in her ears, and the fact that _Cheryl is lying._

Betty doesn't believe her for a second. "Cheryl," she tries to say, but Cheryl just keeps going, lie after impassioned lie spilling out of her mouth and it's not what Betty wants at all. 

She wants Cheryl to listen to her, wants Cheryl to admit that she's as complicit in this as her stupid brother, but instead Cheryl won't _shut up_ and Betty's never been so angry, before. She takes a step, then another, and Cheryl backs up, trying to keep her distance until she hits the far wall of her bedroom, stuck. Betty keeps going. 

Suddenly, her hands are on the wall, one on each side of Cheryl's head. Cheryl's watching her, mouth just slightly open, eyes wide. "Betty," she whispers. "You have to believe me." 

Betty doesn't have to believe anything, anymore. "No, I don't," she hisses back. "Not when I know you're lying." 

Cheryl's mouth gapes open and shut. It makes Betty think of that fish they caught in Sweetwater River, she and Polly, when Betty was nine. It makes Betty think about how her sister will never take her fishing ever again, and then Betty's kissing that faux-shock right off of Cheryl's face. Cheryl feels like lip gloss, heavy and sticky-sweet and it smears against Betty's lipstick, messily. She makes a point of kissing as big as she can, smudging until the space between their lips is a mess of lip gloss and saliva and red pigment, sure to leave a mark. 

When she pulls back, Betty's heart feels like it's going to flutter right out of her chest and Cheryl is gasping. She looks shocked. She looks beautiful. She looks fucked out. She looks a little like a clown, red smeared down to her chin and it's thrilling. 

Betty's never felt so powerful. 

She smiles at Cheryl, takes her chin in one hand. "Cheryl," she says. She can't quite believe her own voice, the sharp edges to it. "Shut up." 

She watches as Cheryl straightens, sets her shoulders back. She's taller than Betty, and she's trying to use it, but she's also licking Betty's lipstick off of her mouth and her pupils are dilated. She can't act that away. "I always knew all that mooning after Archie was an act," she says. 

She's trying to hiss, trying to make Betty feel _scared,_ but all Betty feels is the cold clarity of anger. It stills her anxiety, makes her quiet and confident enough to run her fingers through Cheryl's hair and tug, just a little. Cheryl's eyes flutter closed and she bites her lip, and Betty feels a deep, primal sense of victory. She's got Betty's lipstick on her teeth, and Betty likes it there. "Takes one to know one," she says. 

Cheryl's looking at her hard, eyes searching, trying to find the flaw in Betty's armour. Betty lets her look. She doesn't have armour, anymore. 

"My brother," she says, "is innocent." She's trying to sound haughty, a little cold. But Betty's lipstick is marked all over her face and she's staring straight down at Betty's lips with hungry, hungry eyes. 

"Your brother's as innocent as you are," Betty whispers. She leans in and takes Cheryl's lower lip between her teeth. She bites gently, just enough to make Cheryl squirm, to hear that hitch of breath in the back of Cheryl's throat.

(She thinks about how she could bite harder, if she wanted. Thinks about how she could make Cheryl bleed.) 

Cheryl kisses her back. Cheryl kisses her, threads her hands through Betty's ponytail and Betty knows that she's _won._ She kisses Betty like she actually wants this, slides her tongue between Betty's lips as if Betty can be trusted not to bite it right off. She kisses Betty and walks them forward until Betty's knees hit her bed. The contact gives Betty pause, reminds her to turn them around because if anyone's going to be flat on their back, it's going to be Cheryl. 

Cheryl lets her. 

She pulls at Betty's sweater, falling back onto the bed and looking up at her with hope - hoping Betty will join her, hoping for something soft and sweet and intimate. 

Betty kneels over her and smiles, eyes wide, all teeth, like a shark. Cheryl laughs. 

She slides her hands up Cheryl's skirt, touching bare thighs and sliding northward until she finds what she's looking for, holds Cheryl in the palm of her hand. Cheryl whimpers, grinds down a little. Betty just wants to peel back every layer of her, wants to find the parts of Cheryl that are most vulnerable and twist. Cheryl is hot and wet and Betty can feel it through her panties, presses up against the contours of Cheryl's snatch and watches her squirm. She feels hungry for it, feels ready to touch her but it's not quite right. It's not enough, yet.

She pulls away and drags her nails down Cheryl's thighs, hard enough to leave marks. Cheryl's skin marks up so easily and Betty revels in it, looks at eight perfect, pink lines on her skin and feels something raw, something possessive and vicious. Cheryl whimpers again, says, "Betty, _come on_." 

Betty can't tell if she means to ask Betty to stop, or to hurry up and touch her. "Come on and what, Cheryl," she asks. Her voice is low and harsh and she can feel Cheryl's thighs flex at the sound of it. "Come on and leave you alone? Or do you want me to come on and fuck this out of you, until you scream?"

Cheryl huffs. She doesn't meet Betty's eyes, as she says, "You know what I want."

Betty scratches again, harder. "And you know what I want. Say it." 

Cheryl rolls her eyes, trying for haughtiness and distance but her voice is more than a little broken when she whispers, "Fuck me. Fuck it all out of me." 

Cheryl's panties end up on the floor, and Betty ends up three fingers deep inside her. 

Her cunt is slippery-hot and she quivers around Betty, pulling her in, begging for more. Betty bites her lip and thrusts into it, filling Cheryl up until she whimpers and flexes around her hand. She leans in close, her body curving around Cheryl's until they're cheek to cheek, her mouth pressed against Cheryl's ear. She starts to whisper. She whispers _everything._ She tells Cheryl that she knows about Jason, about Polly. An itemized list spills out of her, every terrible thing Cheryl's ever tried to deny doing, over and over in Cheryl's ears. 

"You think nobody sees it, but I do," Betty whispers. "I see you, Cheryl Blossom, and you're disgusting." 

Cheryl clenches around her fingers and moans. " _Fuck_ you," she hisses. 

"I already am," Betty says. She curls her fingers forward, seeking and finding that spot high inside Cheryl's walls. She feels it, Cheryl Blossom coming around her fingers, juices coating her down to the knuckles. In her heart, Betty doesn't feel a goddamn thing. 

She pulls out, wipes her fingers on the bedspread because she does not give a flying fuck about Cheryl's bed linens. Cheryl's looking up at her, mouth half-open, staring like Betty's something fearsome. She looks undone. Her hair's a mess, her makeup smudged to ruin and she's flushed unevenly, from her cheeks down to her chest. It's unflattering. Cheryl never does anything unflattering, and making her look like that feels like closure. Maybe that's what Betty came here for, after all. 

Cheryl sit up. She's still a mess, but all Betty can focus on is the arm reaching out, fingertips trying to caress. She jerks herself away. "Don't touch me," she says. Cheryl's looking at her too hard, like she just learned something Betty didn't want to give away. "Don't touch me, or I'll tell everyone about this." 

"Like they'd believe you," Cheryl says. She's not wrong, but with her skirt pushed up to her waist and her panties lying on her bedroom floor, she lacks credibility. 

Betty laughs. "You're welcome to find out." 

She collects her purse and shows herself out. The anger under her skin is still, like her street the morning after a snowstorm. Everything is muffled but in a good way, a beautiful way. It's still there, of course, and there's a sting behind her eyes that tells her she's got a few blocks of walking before she starts to cry. Her fingers smell like Cheryl's cunt and when she presses them together, they stick just a little bit.

Betty takes a breath: in through her nose, out through her mouth. Every footstep feels like it's repeating a mantra: _I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine._


End file.
